below: But maybe not here, even if they are two comfy sofas! Comfy but wet.

Meandering on a day early in November

while the trees were still showing their last hurrah of colour.

This mural is on Roncesvalles is partially obscured but is still a welcome splash of colour and vibrance.

I love the raccoons! Pink raccoons

and blue raccoons on street art that I haven’t seen before.

Crooked lines,

tight spaces,

and old glass. All kinds of alterations.

Peeling paint on diamonds (once red?)

and water drops on leaves (definitely red).

One very pink car. Whiskey for Whiskers.

Uber 5000’s yellow birdies and friends are still on the side of Tommy’s Gift & Variety.

And next door you Coffee and breakfast at Tina’s while your tax returns are prepared.

Semi neighbours

at the edges of gentrification.

Lights over the train tracks

and graffiti beside.

A fine and dandy tractor

and a great idea

She’s gone green but she’s got the blues.

and Ontario’s now orange.

A family outing

below: The building with the giraffe pattern on top, at Bloor and Dundas West, is still there.

below: The murals painted by Wallnoize are still there. They were painted in the spring of 2015 and I posted a lot of photos of them shortly after that.

below: The murals run under the Bloor Street underpass (railway tracks overhead), on both sides of the street.

below: The new MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) is now open on Sterling Road. The renovations to the old Tower Automotive building aren’t totally complete; most of the area is a construction site. But the museum opened earlier this year. Access from the West Toronto Railpath is available.

below: More words, this time “It’s a beautiful day in the neighbourhood.” A quote from the TV show, ‘Mr. Rogers Neighbourhood’ along with a picture of Daniel Striped Tiger, a hand puppet from the same show.

below: Shafia Shaik working on her mural. The word GLOW has been cut off. The finished work was signed as EWOK project standing for Equity for Women of (K)olour.

below: A mural by muisca. The finished mural has green leaves and vines on both sides of the face.

The Gardens of St. Clair is a mural project in an alley behind St. Clair West between Prescott and Blackthorn Avenues, just west of the railway tracks. There are lots of roses and other flowers as well as butterflies and birds.

below: A purple pansy and a luminescent insect with a shiny blue body. The dark green vine motif runs throughout the project.

This is another “come along with me as I walk” blog. Let me share some of the sights from Thursday’s walk which started at Ossington subway station and sort of followed Davenport south to Queen Street with a few diversions down alleys and side streets.

below: More painting, this time Princess Leia and a strange red man with a latch in his ear.

below: If he’s aiming for the garbage bin, he’s missed.

below: ‘Always fresh bread!’ according to the mural on Nova Era bakery… but maybe you see the edge of the blue and white city of Toronto development notice sign peeking into the picture….

below: … because a 12 storey condo may be moving in. Retail is planned for the lower level but it may the same old same old glass and steel development with excessively high ceilings on the ground floor and zero street appeal. Please prove me wrong!

below: Across the street, is this empty storefront. Two intriguing blackboards remain – the one on the left says Thank You! and leaves you lines to fill in with things you are thankful for. On the right, a “Before I Die” board. What are you thankful for? What would you like to do before you die? The business once here didn’t die, they just moved around the corner to Bloor Street.

below: A bit of local ‘colour’ complete with ‘colourful’ language.

below: This building is on the northeast corner of Bloor and Dovercourt.

below: I haven’t been able to find out anything about Valentinos but I quite like the debonair rider with a rose between his teeth.

below: Vintage photo of the Bloor and Dovercourt intersection. No cars!

below: The red and white building in the postcard above is on the southeast corner of the intersection. It is now home to a Pizza Pizza. Most of it’s large windows have been covered over with large pictures. The streetcar tracks on Bloor are long gone and Davies butcher shop is now a Starbucks.

below: I walked past St. Michael Archangel Serbian Eastern Orthodox Church (on Delaware Ave) and a Portuguese Presbyterian Church (on Dovercourt). Then I came across the Centennial Methodist Church. It was built in 1906 and converted into residences in 2010.

CENTENNIAL METHODIST CHURCH, 1906, This Neo-Gothic inspired church replaced an earlier Centennial Methodist Church built on this site in 1891. Notable design elements include decorative stone trim, three central Tudor-arch windows, and flanking square towers topped with pyramidal steeples. It was renamed Centennial United Church in , after the creation of the United Church of Canada. In 1986, the Nisei congregation of the Toronto Japanese Church joined Centennial United to form Centennial Japanese Church. A residential redevelopment was completed in 2010.

below: A little farther south on Dovercourt I passed this for sale sign. I stopped and took a photo of it because of the words in pink: “Laneway suite potential”. Of course I had to check the lane to see if anyone had built suites back there. Suites, according to the city of Toronto, are rooms built over garages and not stand alone residences.

below: It is a neat and tidy lane but so far with no suites

below: But I did see this mural there.

below: I also noticed that the backyards on both sides of the alley were very deep, wonderfully deep actually, especially for a city house. You could probably sever it in two quite easily.

below: In fact, something like that has happened a bit farther south where someone took one house, renovated it, and added three more residences with additional access from the alley behind. I notice that there are 4 water meters here as well as a gate that possibly provides access to the houses behind.

In case you’re curious, the four houses are all for sale. The house in front is a semi and the asking price is $2,400,000. For that you get 2992 square feet and 4 bedrooms. The others are slightly smaller and slightly less expensive.

below: A rare large vacant lot

below: Norbregas Variety and Grocery.

below: And nearby, a cafe with both Coca-Cola and Pepsi signs

below: The streets around Dovercourt are all very nice with lots of large solid old houses and tall trees – in this case, a chestnut tree.

below: I even spotted some wildlife!

below: Northeast corner of College & Dovercourt

below: Letters embedded in the sidewalk where one of the branches of the Garrison Creek passes underground, just south of College Street. The creek was buried more than a century ago. In the early days, the creek was treated more like an open sewer than a river. As the city developed, the stream was diverted into underground sewers (1880’s) and streets were built above it. By 1920, almost a century ago, the stream was entirely diverted into the sewer system.

below: The age of this car seemed to fit well with the buildings around it.

below: Some of Dr. Spock still remains. He hasn’t been beamed up yet.

below: Part of a mural by elicser in a lane behind Dundas West

below: Looking east along Dundas, from Dovercourt

below: A larger than life Pink Panther painted by Matt Gondek. This is on the northeast corner of Dundas and Dovercourt, close to Skey Lane where his other murals are (see recent blog post on Skey Lane)

below: She can still be found near Queen and Dovercourt (painted by Jarus)

Just before Queen Street West there is an art galley called the David Kaye Gallery.

below: It may be difficult to see, but this cup is displayed in a glass case mounted on the wall. The back part of the cube is a mirror. For $12,500 it can be yours (but my arm is not included!).

below: Both this piece, and the cup above, are part of “Camp Fires: The Queer Baroque of Léopold L. Foulem” and are on display until the 23rd of September.

I am going to end this blog post with a few pictures of some of the graffiti that I saw:

below: This is the side of a building in the lane. Around the corner of the building, the horizontal lines continue and the word Bellwoods is incorporated into it.

below: A fence is in the way which makes taking pictures of this mural a bit difficult but here is the north end of it. Mickey Mouse and his big white gloves is punching Bugs Bunny. This is the work of Los Angeles artist Matt Dondek (@gondekdraws) who calls himself a deconstructive popartist.

below: This is recognizable as being about the Simpsons. It looks like a character from the Simpsons but which one? Spikey hair like Maggie’s but in Marge’s colour. A bit of brown hair like who? Regardless of who he looks like, he surely represents the Simpsons. He’s got a partially eaten donut in one hand and although you can’t see it in this pic, he’s got a Duff’s beer in the other. This was a collaboration between Matt Gondek and Paul Jackson.

below: The next sections of the wall are Calvin Hobbes themed and was painted by Sadar (@blazeworks) and Cepsr.

below: Spaceman Spliff

below: An angry (or scheming?) Calvin and devious looking Hobbes with Cepsr written large in between them.

I had heard about this event but I was away in mid-August which was the week that it occurred. I knew that it was on a lane off McCaul but I couldn’t remember where. McCaul isn’t that long so I started walking north at Queen. At Dundas, this is what I saw:

below: The edge of a mural by Emily May Rose beckons you to come and take a closer look.

I knew that I was in the right place when I saw the word (is it a word?) #womxnpaintto painted on the ground. So I followed the little yellow arrow and walked behind the buildings to a lane running east/west behind Dundas Street.

below: The mural is higher than the fence by quite a bit so as I walked beside the fence I was able to take this picture.

below: Three murals on a double garage. On the right is a woman with blue and orange rays by @dbetty13 (aka Désiré Betty). The other woman, the one with the wild turquoise hair was painted by toest (aka Sarah Gilmore). On the side of the building, partially obscured by the car is a mural painted by @nightarcade (aka Sarah Cannon).

below: An attempt to get a closer look at the side of the garage (with St. Patricks RC church in the background).

below: A fence with some murals – starting at the end with ” What You Do is Magic” by Shelby McLeod. Magic hands perhaps.